A place where I can gather information about all things cool and fun and thought provoking in the fast changing world of Post Production and Video.
There will also be room for some fun consumer electronics stuff.

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Cool things at Avid

My favorite subject to stand on a soap box and preach about these days is workflow. It seems that in the world of radio and television production there can be some terrible inefficiencies in the process. How many hands need to touch a product before it's done... or can even begin!

I have been involved in file based workflow for audio for about 10 years now. Audio is very easy. To set up a multi-user audio post production environment really only requires a simple server and reasonably priced switch. Any modern computer has built in gigabit Ethernet. Most DAWs or editing software let you stream audio right from the server. Cheap and easy.

Well... video is not quite so easy, and most definitely not cheap. To say you just need a more robust network is a gross understatement. What Avid is doing seems to cover all of the networking issues from permissions, to rationing bandwidth, and to allocating appropriate disk space. Yes, it's expensive but if you have the budget to make the capital investment then you will save a lot in the long run.

Imagine if as soon as footage is digitized how great it would be if the entire organization could immediately have access to it. One group could begin graphics as the editor is editing; the audio guys can grab the project in Avid and sync it with ProTools. At any time the producer can look at any element form his own desk.

Proof videos can be sent via ether net, or to automated DVD duplicators.

The goal is not to lay people off, but rather to make use of their valuable time. Their time and talent won't go to waste waiting for deliverables. There will be much fewer inefficiencies keeping them from producing.